The peace of Luneville was proclaimed:  Austria only lost in this first peace the republic of Venice, which she had formerly received as an indemnity for Belgium; and this ancient mistress of the Adriatic, once so haughty and powerful, again passed from one master to the other.

CHAPTER 6.

Corps diplomatique during the Consulate.—­Death of the Emperor Paul.

I passed that winter in Paris very tranquilly.  I never went to the first consul’s—­I never saw M. de Talleyrand.  I knew Bonaparte did not like me:  but he had not yet reached the degree of tyranny which he has since displayed.  Foreigners treated me with distinction,—­the corps diplomatique were my constant visitors,—­and this European atmosphere served me as a safeguard.

A minister just arrived from Prussia fancied that the republic still existed, and began by putting forward some of the philosophical notions he had acquired in his intercourse with Frederick the Great:  it was hinted to him that he had quite mistaken his ground, and that he must rather avail himself of his knowledge of courts.  He took the hint very quickly, for he is a man whose distinguished powers are in the service of a character particularly supple.  He ends the sentence you begin, and begins that which he thinks you will end; and it is only in turning the conversation upon the transactions of former ages, on ancient literature, or upon subjects unconnected with persons or things of the present day, that you discover the superiority of his understanding.

The Austrian Ambassador was a courtier of a totally different stamp, but not less desirous of pleasing the higher powers.  The one had all the information of a literary character; the other knew nothing of literature beyond the French plays, in which he had acted the parts of Crispin and Chrysalde.  It is a known fact, that when ambassador to Catherine II, he once received despatches from his court, when he happened to be dressed as an old woman; and it was with difficulty that the courier could be made to recognize his ambassador in that costume.  M. de C. was an extremely common-place character; he said the same things to almost every one he met in a drawing room:  he spoke to every person with a kind of cordiality in which sentiments and ideas had no part.  His manners were engaging, and his conversation pretty well formed by the world; but to send such a man to negotiate * with the revolutionary strength and roughness that surrounded Bonaparte, was a most pitiable spectacle.  An aide-de-camp of Bonaparte complained of the familiarity of M. de C.; he was displeased that one of the first noblemen of the Austrian monarchy should squeeze his hand without ceremony.  These new debutans in politeness could not conceive that ease was in good taste.  In truth, if they had been at their ease, they would have committed strange inconsistencies, and arrogant stiffness was much better suited to them in the new part they